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Mini: Shampoo · Why We Do What We Do

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  You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome to Why we do
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  what we do. I am your host Abraham, and I'm one of your
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  host Shane. And today we're talking this. This is a mini sorry,
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  this is why we do what we do mini episodes. So it's gonna be
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  a short form quick dive. It's kind of a deep dive on a topic
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  that we felt did not warrant a full episode, but that we could cover
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  in a cool like ten to fifteen minutes. Yeah, we call them fun
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  size sometimes fun size. I like that perfect. Yeah. And so today
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  we are talking about shampoo, and I'll give a quick background on this and
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  why I even wanted to talk about this. I was thinking about the fact
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  that, like, we recently talked about hair and in one of our episodes,
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  and I was thinking about the fact that it's kind of unique that it
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  seems like we have all as a species collectively decided that we need to rub
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  soap through hair periodically like a lot. Actually, yeah, and that we
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  make like a very special soap just for doing that sort of thing. And
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  I was like, what would we have done if we never came up with
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  shampoo, or like, why don't other creatures seem like they need shampoo.
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  Why do we shampoo our hair? And so I decided to like look into
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  it and see, like where did this come from? Why do humans do
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  this thing? Yeah? I like that. I think if I didn't have
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  shampoo, I would just shave my head fair enough. You have a lot
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  of hair, so I've got a lot of hair. It'd be real pain,
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  real pain itself. We're excited to have everybody here for this travel size
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  episode on shampoo, like thinking of the little bottles and stuff like that,
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  less than eight ounces, so it's that was good. I like that a
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  lot. Yeah, So let's go ahead dive in, right, Let's go
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  ahead and start with some background on what shampoo is. Let's do it.
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  Shampoo comes from a Hindi word, which the pronunciation guide suggests with symbols that
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  are not part of the English language, but I roughly take to interpret as
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  reading chapeau, which comes from a Sanskrit word with no pronunciation guide and letters
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  I do not recognize at all, essentially meaning to soothe, need or massage.
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  Ah. I like that, yeah, And that's like one of the
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  best feelings in the world, is like when you get your hair cut at
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  a salon and somebody else is washing your hair. It's right, nice,
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  gentle scalp massage is very Oh, it's so wonderful. Now. Shampoo likely
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  evolved alongside the invention of soap, but the problem with cleaning hair isn't usually
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  the dirt as much as the oil called sebum. That's right, many people
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  will be familiar with sebum. That is the very unique scalp oil that we
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  produce that makes our hair turn into what it turns into when you haven't washed
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  it in some time. Yeah, which is gross. Yeah, it can
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  be a thing. At least as far back as the early Egyptians around five
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  thousand years ago, or when the Earth was made, according to some global
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  people, the Egyptians realized that one just regular soap left of gross, unpleasant
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  filmy residue in the hair, and two that using citrus would cut through the
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  sebum, the sort of scalp oil that a hair produces, but that the
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  citrits itself also needed to be washed out. So they simply combined the soap
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  with the citrus. I bet that smelt so good right now. The resulting
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  formula clean the dirt and head oil out of the hair. And the Egyptians
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  heads smelled fruity fresh, which is really wonderful. Everybody smelled like oranges,
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  that's right. Then probably some other spices, you know, and there.
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  Yeah comment. Back then in the Middle Ages, this special hair soap was
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  mixed with sodium carbonate also just called soda or potassium carbonate also called potash,
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  and this created a mixture high and negatively charged ions, which is important to
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  how soap works, and which is I understand it and I am not a
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  chemist, is mostly helpful for preventing the molecule from clumping together, and again
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  is a very common feature of how soap sort of works. As these negatively
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  charged ions. So Briti salons were offering at therapeutic had massage using shampoo,
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  which was soap shavings with herbs by at late seventeen hundreds, which is like
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  a nice change of pace from the bubonic plague, it seems, yeah,
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  yeah, straight from plague to shampoo. Yeah. The Germans further refined shampoo
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  into a detergent, so there was actually some special like inventions and patents that
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  happened around this, and this detergent that they used would not leave a residue,
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  but It wasn't even until after World War One that shampoo became commercially available
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  for individual sales, which is a lot more recent than I would have thought
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  given all of this. Like, it was within the last one hundred years
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  or so that shampoo became commercially available. Like, if you have a grandparent
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  that's old enough, they may have lived in a time before you could go
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  to a store and buy a bottle of shampoo. Yeah, which is wild
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  to think about. Or great grandparents maybe, yeah, greag, I was
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  the same, have to be my great grandparents, I think so. Yeah.
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  One of the earliest manufacturers of shampoo in the US didn't begin until nineteen
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  thirty in Massachusetts by a man named John Breck when he failed to find a
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  cure for baldness, although he did find a cure for poverty, at least
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  for himself. Yes, he struck gold in the shampoo market, very lucrative.
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  All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break to
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  shampoo our hair. You can go shampoo your hair in the same time,
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  or listen to some ads. We'll be right back after this. Okay,
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  So we were just talking about the manufacturing in the beginning of shampoo in the
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  United States, but we haven't actually gotten to why do we feel like it's
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  necessary to shampoo our hair in the first place? But why though there's actually
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  not a medical reason to shampoo your hair. There's no reason to shampoo your
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  hair. Yeah. Now, I don't want I don't want everybody to take
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  that as like a few years ago when it came out that like flossing wasn't
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  really that important. Yeah, Like I know, I don't want people to
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  go out and just stop shampooing their hair. But there's not a medical reason
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  why you would need the shampoo your hair. Yes. Now, So what
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  happens though, is without shampoo, the oil in your hair will build a
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  lot on your scalp your hair, and the sebum will trap a lot of
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  dirt and debris. Because of this, it will possibly stink, It will
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  definitely look very messy, greasy, and can become limp. Now important though,
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  is that if you even just rinse your hair, that will remove a
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  lot of the dirt in general debris, it will not remove very much of
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  the sebum. Yeah, So mostly people shampoo their hair so it looks clean,
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  lacks dirt and debris, and smells nice. Very true. Now,
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  oil keeps hair moisturized so frequently shampooing can actually dry your hair out if you're
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  getting rid of the seabum so often that it's not getting moisturized. Instead,
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  you'll have dry hair, and dry hair breaks easily and looks frizzy. So
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  a little oil or moisturizer helps prevent your hair from being easily damaged. And
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  so people who do shampoo their hair a lot will oftentimes supplement or maybe should
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  supplement by adding some kind of oil to their hair. Or you can just
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  shampoo like a little less frequently and you won't have to do that. Yeah,
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  Now, unless you have a medical condition such as a scalp, some
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  type of scalp, psoriasis, or lice or something, if you never use
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  shampoo again, your hair would look dirty and might smell a little, but
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  otherwise you would be fine. You wouldn't run into too many issues, right,
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  So, ultimately it's sort of a personal choice for most people, and
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  most people choose to use shampoo. Some people advocate for shampoo free lifestyles because
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  of the aggressiveness of shampoo chemical. Essentially, they can strip the oils,
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  they can strip the follicles, they can do all kinds of stuff. You
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  know, there is also that piece where it's like I definitely want to make
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  sure my hair is clean so I don't get lace. Yes, that,
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  and like I said, it'll start to look like if you've seen people from
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  countries that are still developing more who have less access to that sort of thing,
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  kind of see what looks like dirt, dirt build up around the hairline
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  or on the scalp, and that often is because they just don't have access
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  to shampoo. And so that's what it would mostly look like. Or you'll
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  look like Darryl Dixon from Walking Dead and how Greasy has exactly just like that.
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  I mean, he pulls it off. He's very cool, he's very
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  very cool, but yeah, his hair is greasy. Yeah. Or you
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  know you may look like in Grease, how they actually just put grease in
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  their hair. Yeah, And why do you think they're called greasers? Exactly?
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  Does it looks like it's just constantly wet, which is so attractive.
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  Yeah, I will say I am one of those where I tend to only
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  shampoo my hair a few times a week. Otherwise I tend to just sort
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  of let it get wet. Also because I've found that if I do it
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  a lot more than that for the various reason my hair starts to get dry
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  and look a little crazy. Hmm. My hair gets real oily really quickly,
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  so I have to wash my hair like every other day. Gotcha.
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  Yeah. I used to get tandriff, but I haven't in a really long
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  time. So mostly what I use is I use a specialized curly hair shampoo.
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  Ooh, I like that. I mean, it's supposed to be good
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  for curly hair, but also then my hair is like crazy curly. I
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  imagine that the shampoo that you buy is one vegan, but also that it
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  has like an old timey label on it that says Abraham's Hair Tonic. That
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  would be pretty great. Do you have a preferred shampoo that you like.
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  I have to use medicated shampoo because I do have a little bit of rice.
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  It's on the back of my head, so like, I have to
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  do that. But I don't really have a preference. I just like the
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  ones that smell really nice. Gotcha. Okay, fair enough, Yeah,
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  that's interusy hair smell is good. Yeah, all right. I think that
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  is all we have to say about shampoo. If you would like to reach
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  out to us, and let us know what we missed about shampoo or something
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  you'd like to tell us about your favorite shampoo. You can reach us at
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  info at wwdwdpodcast dot com. You can also reach us on the social media
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  or on the regular ones. You can also leave us a rating and
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  review, Tell a friend. You can shop at our merch store to walk
• 9:13
  away some cool tangible gifts for yourself or other loved ones. And I think
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  I maybe mentioned, but you can join us on Patreon. You get all
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  kinds of perks and benefits there and so shout out to all our Patreon folks.
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  Thank you so much for doing what you do. Is there anything to
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  say that I missed about shampoo or anything? Nope, wash your hair all
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  right. Thank you for recording with me today, Shane. Thank you everyone
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  for listening. This is Abraham and this is Shane. Why we do what
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  we Do? Mini is out ze up. You've been listening to Why We
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  Do what We Do. You can learn more about this and other episodes by
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  going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you
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  have an awesome day,